First, as background, door units for installation in building constructions comprise a door and a doorframe, the doorframe, in turn, comprising a doorjamb at either vertical side of the door and a header, the horizontal member above the door connecting the two jambs. Hinges attach the door to one of the jambs for opening and closing the door. Looking from the opening side of the door, if the hinges are attached to the left jamb, the door will be a right opening door. If the hinges are attached to the right jamb, it will be a left opening door. Such units are referred to as “prehung” doors.
Two or three hinges are normally applied, spaced apart along the door side edge and jamb margin. Hinges for doors typically are butt hinges which comprise two flanges or leaves that are joined together at adjacent margins with a pin extending along the margins from the top of the flanges to the bottom to form the hinge joint. The leaves are for applying the application side of the hinge against the receiving surfaces of the door and jamb. Typically, the receiving surfaces are prepared by routing out a pocket for each flange to a depth that the outer surface or face of each flange is flush with the adjacent door and jamb surface.
The leaves of a butt hinge are capable of rotating about the hinge joint from a door-closed position with their outer faces closed together to a door-open position with leaves rotating apart typically up to maximum arc somewhat greater than 270 degrees. Thus, when they are installed, as described above, with the application side of each hinge against the door edge and jamb face, the door may be pivoted between a fully closed position to a fully opened position.
There are fluted sections extending intermittently along each adjacent flange margin to form knuckles that cooperate to receive the pin. The two leaves each extend generally flat from the hinge joint to their respective free side margins opposed to their margins at the joint. They are generally without bends or outward projections so that they will nest in hinge pockets prepared in the surface of the door edge or jamb face with the inner (application) face applied against the door surface in the pocket and outer face of the leaf flush with the door edge or jamb face surface.
The hinge pin has a head at one end thereof larger than the openings of the fluted sections so that when the pin is inserted through the fluted sections the head remains at the top of the hinge above the upper ends of the flanges. The pin head end of the hinge is normally the upper end of the hinge when installed on a door. With the pinhead at the top end of the hinge the pin cannot accidentally slide down and out of the hinge. The flanges are each provided with openings therethrough for receiving screws to fix the hinge to the door margin and jamb face.
Door units may be fabricated using automated workstations, which apply hinges to connect a jamb face to one side edge of the door. In order to apply hinges at multiple locations along the side of the door using a stationary hinger either a separate hinger must be used for each site or a conveyor for the door and jamb must be used to move the hinge locations to a single stationary hinger. An example of the latter is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,772,757.
Alternatively, a hinger may be mounted on a carriage for movement between each hinge site to apply all of the hinges consecutively with the same hinger. Two hinges are normally applied, spaced apart along the door edge and jamb margin. Please refer to accompanying U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,290 of the present inventor for an illustration of this type of workstation. In the workstation depicted there a door and a doorjamb are held with the appropriate door edge and jamb face in juxtaposition for receiving hinges therebetween at appropriate intervals. A carriage is mounted for movement along the door edge and jamb face (see the specification at column 4, lines 52-64). Various equipment mounted on the carriage prepares the door edge and jamb face for receiving the hinges, drills the screw holes, applies the hinges and drives screws through the hinges to fix them to the door edge and jamb face. The carriage contains a magazine with plate 332 carrying pins 330 for receiving opened hinges in a stack with their screw holes engaged in pins 330. Hinges are picked off of the magazine for application at the hinge sites along the door edge and jamb face by receiving block 50.
To apply the hinge to a door edge and jamb face, the hinge must be open with the application side thereof against the door edge and jamb surfaces so that after application of the hinge the door may be rotated about the pin to bring the door fully to the closed position with the flanges flat against each other and the door edge against the adjacent side of the jamb. Additionally, the hinge must be oriented so that it is applied with the head of the pin at top of the hinge and toward the top of the door.
This is accomplished with the apparatus of Patent No. '290 by first stacking open hinges in the magazine with the closure side of the hinges facing upward and with their pinheads all in the same direction and with their application sides facing downward. Then screw and hinge block 50, with the block face horizontally, will pick up screws on the upper side and the uppermost hinge in the stack will be picked up magnetically on the opposite side. Then block 50 is rotated ninety degrees to bring the block face to the vertical with hinge flanges against the door edge and jamb face with the closure side facing outwardly of the door and jamb. As noted in column 9 of the patent, depending upon whether the door is to be right or left side opening, magazine 180 may be rotated one hundred eighty degrees as need so that pin head of the hinge is on the side of the hinge toward the top of the door.
A somewhat similar approach is shown in U.S. Patent '757 where a bin contains a stack of opened and oriented hinges having their respective application sides facing downward. They are dispensed sequentially from the bottom to a location for loading with screws. Each hinge is then moved onto an adjacent horizontal plate at the hinge applying location which tips the screw-loaded hinge to the vertical to presenting it to the door and jamb. In either of the foregoing approaches provides no automatic means of forming the required stack of opened and oriented hinges.
Hinges are normally supplied for fabrication operations packaged stacked in containers with each hinge closed upon itself, i.e. with the flanges rotated about the hinge joint to bring them in abutting relationship with their outer faces against each other and with the hinge joint at one side of the flanges. Every other hinge in the stack is positioned with the knuckles and pin on the left side and the other hinges are positioned with their knuckles and pins on the right side. This allows the hinges to be stacked in a relatively vertical stack. The pin head sides of the hinges often are randomly placed to one side or the other. For use in automated hingers, all of the closed hinges must be opened and placed in stacks oriented so that their sides and ends, including top and bottom directions, are aligned and so that the application faces of their leaves are all at the same side.
When applied by hand in the conventional manner, the hinges are removed individually from the package, opened by hand and oriented to place the pin head at the top and then applied to the door and jamb. When automated equipment such as described in Patent '290 is employed, the hinges are preloaded by hand after first opening them by hand and then orienting them to have the head of each pin at the same end. This consumes both valuable machine time and operator time. Clearly devising an automated way to provide hinges to the hinger properly opened and oriented would be highly advantageous.
Previously automatic procedures have been proposed for opening hinges having “L” shaped hinges. United Kingdom Patent No. 2,047,214 discloses a procedure in which closed “L” shaped hinges are oriented in a bowl feeder and consecutively fed along a track having a stepped abutment along one side against which the hinge joint rests. A ram is pushed from the other side of the track against the free edge of the uppermost hinge leaf to cause this “L” shaped leaf to pivot upward ninety degrees to half open it. A second ram at a subsequent station then pushes downward against the now vertical free end of the uppermost leaf to pivot that leaf a further ninety degrees to fully open it. The opened hinge is then moved to an electro-magnetic pick that lifts it and applies it to a window sash frame. However this procedure is applicable only to an “L” shaped hinge because a flat leaf hinge does not lend itself to orienting by a feeding bowl and a closed flat hinge because of its flat configuration could not be opened effectively by application of a ram against the free end of the upper leaf.